


Inflated Frogs

by Quasar



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-28
Updated: 2010-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:23:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasar/pseuds/Quasar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why is the new scientist blackmailing Rodney?  And why is Rodney giving in?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inflated Frogs

**Author's Note:**

> Written October 2007. Author skipped warnings for a reason.

It all started when the Daedalus arrived with more new personnel to supplement the staff that had returned when the city was reclaimed from the replicators. They had the usual orientation sessions in the afternoon (John conducted the sessions for the military himself; Rodney delegated the scientists' orientations to a minion who was out of favor), followed by the welcome party in the evening (Rodney never missed that part, since there was food). After some circulating, John ended up standing near Rodney, who was strategically positioned near the buffet table. New scientists, who had seen Rodney at a distance but hadn't spoken to him yet, kept coming up and introducing themselves to the head of science.

"Yes, yes," said Rodney, waving impatiently at the latest newcomer to try her wiles on him. She was older, brunette and a little dumpy, so naturally Rodney was more interested in the food than what she was saying. "Sociology isn't my field, since of course I do actual _science_. Go tell Dr. Corrigan about your research."

The woman's eyes narrowed, but she wasn't scared off so easily. "Oh, but you're the _Head of Science_," she said with something like a-simper. "I thought you would want to know --"

"Well, you thought wrong. Advancement around here doesn't depend on sucking up to me; it depends on competence and results."

"And survival skills," John murmured, but they weren't listening to him.

"Look, there's Dr. Corrigan in the corner, there. Go make nice with him." Rodney turned his back on the woman and studied the newest tray of hors d'oeuvres with a happy little hum.

"Not exactly telling it like it is, there, buddy," John needled him.

Rodney puffed up in predictable indignation. "What are you talking about? My department is entirely free of internal politics and ass-kissing. Promotion and allocation of resources is based purely on a record of success."

"Like that extra greenhouse you set aside for _Katie_, hmm?" John didn't feel threatened by Dr. Brown -- it wasn't like he owned Rodney or even wanted to; that would just be setting himself up for a fall -- but he thought she was too sweet. Rodney needed someone who wouldn't let him walk all over her (or him). Someone to tease him and puncture his ego from time to time so it didn't overinflate.

"That was results-based!" Rodney's chin came up defiantly. "She had some very compelling graphics to show why more space was necessary."

"Uh-huh."

"All right then, what about Zelenka? He has the highest rank after me and the most resources -- because he's the most competent. And he doesn't suck up to me at all!"

"True." John waited for Rodney to bite into a wiener before continuing, "but sometimes I think you stick with him just so you won't have to learn any of the new peoples' names."

Rodney choked. "Fine! I'll learn a new name right now. You --" He pointed at a man whose face was vaguely familiar to John. "Nice to meet you, how was your trip?"

"Uh . . . I'm Dr. Graydon. I've been here for a few months?"

Rodney was taken aback. "Oh. Right. I, uh . . . didn't recognize you with the new, uh, haircut. Looks good."

Graydon lifted a hand uncertainly to his head and wandered away.

John didn't bother to hide his smirk.

"Yes, well . . . it could happen to anybody," Rodney insisted.

"Uh-huh." John nodded at another man who was heading their way. "Now this guy, I think is new."

"No no, I've known him for years. It's, um . . ." Rodney snapped his fingers to stimulate his memory.

"Merry!" said the newcomer oddly. "I'm Dr. Torrenz." He held out a hand.

Rodney didn't shake it. He had gone stiff and pale, the empty plate he held trembling a little. "_What_ did you call me?"

"Merry . . . Meredith?"

It was John's turn to choke, on nothing but air. "_Merry_?" he murmured, but Rodney's tense expression took most of the fun out of it.

"You are Dr. Meredith McKay, aren't you?"

"Rodney. I go by Rodney these days."

"Oh, sorry. Someone at Area 51 must have used the old name. I overlapped with you there, remember?" The guy grinned fiercely, and John was sure the mistake had been deliberate.

"Yes, I think perhaps I --"

"I worked with you and Dr. Ingram. Remember her? Excellent scientist," he said aside to John, "but questionable taste in men, you know?"

"Excuse me," said Rodney in a strained voice. "I have to, uh --" He waved vaguely in the direction of the bathrooms and set his plate down on the edge of the buffet table. It toppled as soon as he let go and fell clattering to the floor; it was unbreakable, but still noisy. Conversations stopped and people around the room stared as Rodney hurried away with shoulders hunched.

* * *

John asked about it later that night, in Rodney's room. (They had ended up using Rodney's room because John was better at sneaking around at 5 am without looking like he was sneaking around, and because Rodney was obsessively attached to a ridiculous array of personal care products, which John didn't want migrating to his bathroom.) John arrived to find Rodney sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at the wall of his diplomas and awards. Strangely, whenever Rodney looked over these trophies he never seemed smug; instead he was thoughtful, almost wistful or nostalgic. Sometimes it gave him some kind of inspiration or at least renewed determination when he was struggling with a problem.

John was used to it by now, and they weren't facing any special challenges, so he didn't bother giving Rodney time for contemplation. "What's up with you and that Torrenz guy?" he demanded.

Rodney bent to unlace his boots. "Hmm?"

"He called you _Merry_? I haven't heard that one before."

Rodney snorted. "No one at Area 51 called me that. I don't think any of them knew my first name, except Colonel Simmons and maybe Colonel Maybourne."

"So Torrenz was just yanking your chain?"

"Yes, that must have been it." Rodney kicked his boots aside and headed for the bathroom. If he got hold of his toothbrush or floss, the conversation would be over.

"What about this Dr. Ingram he mentioned, then?"

Rodney paused in the doorway, not turning. "What about her?"

"The name sounds familiar. Have you talked about her before?"

"I doubt it." Rodney continued into the bathroom.

The terse answers were setting off alarm bells in John's head. He lounged in the doorway and kept pushing. "Could Jeannie have mentioned her? I'm sure I've heard the name before."

Rodney puttered over the sink. "It's possible. Jeannie did meet Mary -- Dr. Ingram -- once, before she dropped out of school and married that moron."

"Yeah, I remember now. Jeannie said something about how she was a perfect match for you -- a woman who could keep up with your mind _and_ your mouth, I think she said."

Rodney didn't answer, spreading toothpaste on his brush with excessive care.

"And she said you made a really cute couple -- Mer and Mary." John gave a predatory grin. "That is kinda sweet. So you were dating this woman?"

"Yes."

John should have been warned off, but he pushed anyway. "So what happened? Bad breakup? She only wanted you for your brain? What?"

"She died." Rodney shoved the brush in his mouth and started moving it in careful circles, staring fixedly at the mirror.

"Oh. Shit. I'm sorry, buddy, I shouldn't have . . . uh. You don't need to talk about it if you don't want to." John leaned in to pat Rodney's shoulder awkwardly and then withdrew for his own, much shorter, bedtime routine. He was under the covers ten minutes before Rodney emerged to join him.

John rolled over to put his arms cautiously around Rodney, and Rodney (who was never much of a cuddler, since he claimed the awkward positions gave him back spasms) wrapped his own arms over John's.

"Guess I shouldn't have pushed," John said. Obviously whatever had happened had hurt Rodney badly. "You don't have to talk about it."

Rodney sighed into the darkness. "We were researching some . . . devices brought back by SG-1. They were invented by this crazy old guy -- a genius, actually, but he was totally nuts by the end, and paranoid because he'd been fighting the goa'uld all his life. We didn't know until too late that some of the devices were booby-trapped."

John petted Rodney's chest soothingly.

"He didn't want them falling into the wrong hands, see. So he set them up so that certain kinds of tampering . . . . We were just trying to figure out how it worked, and Dr. M-- Mary, I mean, she just --"

"Shh, it's okay," John said uselessly. It wasn't okay, but he didn't know what else to say. He was no good at offering comfort, at least not with words.

"I forgot," Rodney said miserably. "I haven't thought about it in so long, and I just -- I forgot how much I missed . . . . Everything changed." He rolled suddenly toward John, and then they were kissing, and the awkwardness fell away. This kind of comfort, John knew how to provide. He took over, did all the work, tried to let Rodney lose himself in sensation, fucked him slow and deep until Rodney was begging for release.

When it was over and Rodney was asleep, John lay awake thinking how weird it felt that he had hurt Rodney -- usually it seemed to be the other way around in John's relationships. But of course, he hadn't really caused the pain this time either, just reminded Rodney about it. He wondered what that Dr. Torrenz had intended by bringing up such painful memories.

* * *

John didn't see a lot of Dr. Torrenz over the next few weeks, what with missions and the usual weekly crises, but he paid attention when the man was around. One afternoon in the mess, he heard Torrenz and some of the other new scientists griping about how McKay was holding them all back from the cutting-edge research and the most interesting artifacts. John had heard such complaints before; a lot of people had trouble adjusting from being the best and brightest in their fields on Earth to 'clueless newbies' in Atlantis. But after Torrenz left, the other two (a Dr. Watson, who had asked about John's driving range setup, and a woman he didn't recognize) agreed that Torrenz had it better than either of them, and they speculated on why McKay would be playing favorites. This was different; Rodney normally had a uniform disregard for the new people until they brought themselves to his attention by some feat of brilliance or stupidity.

John meant to ask Rodney about that, but he got distracted by the whale-watching and pretty soon the whole city was going crazy. A couple of weeks later, when he was heading to the labs to grab Rodney for a quick game of Civilization, he ran into Radek instead. The physicist was wheeling a cart laden with equipment down the corridor, so John offered to help him unload the stuff. "What is all this, anyway?"

"One of my experiments. I am transferring it to another lab."

"Oh. Okay." John frowned at the door Radek entered, well away from the more central lab area. "I take it this is something that needs a little less . . . bustle, more privacy?"

"More room for Dr. Torrenz, more likely."

John paused in the act of getting his arms around one of the larger boxes. "Huh?"

"Rodney is giving some of my lab space to Dr. Torrenz, who has been agitating for more room."

"You're kidding me. Since when does McKay give the time of day to the new guys, much less _your_ lab space?"

"Well. This is not a high-priority experiment. Just something I tinker with when I have an hour or two to spare. Yes, put that over here, please."

John grunted as he set the big box down. "Okay, if it's not vital, that's nice, but what has Torrenz done to earn space in your lab? Why doesn't _he_ get the space down the hall and around the corner? Is he some big hotshot genius?"

Radek snorted. "Not likely. No, I think . . . actually, I think Rodney is afraid of him."

John stiffened. "You saying this guy is threatening McKay?"

"Yes . . . oh, no, not like that. Nothing physical. But there is something he holds over Rodney's head. Something in the way he speaks, implying things without saying them, and always with the little smile, you know? He keeps always talking about the old days back at Area 51, and he calls Rodney by the wrong name."

John lifted the last box off the dolly. "Sounds like I'd better have a talk with Dr. Torrenz."

Radek looked uncomfortable. "Ah, Colonel, perhaps you should . . . that is, I think Rodney would be angry if he knew I had told you this."

"He should have told me himself, if this guy is making trouble. It could be a security issue!"

"Dr. Torrenz has not done anything _wrong_, not that I have witnessed. He hasn't even said anything truly threatening. It is all in his eyes and his smile and the way Rodney reacts."

John took a breath and forced himself to calm down a little. "Okay. I get it. I'll have to take a subtle approach."

Radek's forehead furrowed.

"What? I can be subtle!"

* * *

John sought out Torrenz the next morning. The new scientist didn't really look like a bad sort of person; he had an open face, quick smile, easy manner. He was always very neat, too: hair well trimmed and combed, not a trace of stubble, uniform crisp. It looked good to John's military-trained eye, but he'd realized a while ago the more rumpled scientists were the ones that got the most work done. After all, Kavanagh had been a pretty clean guy, too.

"Hey," said John with a friendly smile (not his _best_ smile; that would be pushing too hard). "Is McKay around?"

Torrenz looked up from his computer. "Ah, no, he's with a team going through the lower levels. Looking for power drains, I think."

"Oh, is that today? I forgot," said John vaguely. He hadn't forgotten; in fact, he'd offered to go with the scientists, but Rodney had said sarcastically that he didn't think there would be any replicators hiding out that the converted shield had missed. And if there were, bullets wouldn't stop them anyway, so John might as well stay behind. John had decided to use the opportunity to question Torrenz without interruptions.

He hitched a hip on the edge of the workbench. "What are you working on?"

"Just a little project of mine," said Torrenz modestly. "I'm trying to characterize the power supplies for some of these self-contained Ancient devices, you see?" He waved at an array of scanners and other devices -- including some John was pretty sure were broken or depleted -- scattered across what had been Radek's workspace until a few hours ago. "I'm hoping to figure out how to recharge them, or at least use Ancient power sources for some of our own electronics."

"Sounds . . . cool," said John. Actually, it sounded like something Rodney had worked on a couple of years ago. He'd never figured out how to do the recharging (so no more personal shield device, not to mention reclaimed ZPMs), but Ancient battery packs were pretty common for computers going offworld. Apparently no one had shared this news with Torrenz, though; John wondered if Rodney had given the man a useless job to keep him busy, or if he just hadn't believed Rodney that the possibilities had already been checked out.

"So, I guess all you new folks are getting settled in around here?"

Torrenz rubbed his face. "Yes, I suppose you could say that."

"Getting along with McKay?" John leaned in and murmured confidentially, "He can be a little tough to get along with; believe me, I know."

Torrenz laughed nervously. "Yeah, actually I'm not so sure about that. I don't think Dr. McKay likes me very much."

John blinked at this easy admission. "Oh, really?"

"I keep thinking it's something I said, but Dr. Simpson and Dr. Kusanagi have been telling us all not to take his temper to heart. Maybe it's him and not me. I'm just not sure."

John narrowed his eyes a little. Either the guy was a great actor, and not about to cave under a little subtle questioning, or he wasn't really holding anything over Rodney's head. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding. John generally trusted Zelenka's instincts, but he'd just reported that Rodney seemed afraid of Torrenz somehow -- so maybe Rodney was misinterpreting something.

After all, was it really likely that this guy was, what, blackmailing McKay somehow? It seemed incredible; could Rodney really have some dirty secret in his past -- one that he never revealed in a slip of the tongue, when he was tired or frightened or drunk?

He had to give the direct approach another chance before giving up, though. "I hear you worked with McKay years ago, back on Earth. What was he like back then?"

"Oh, well, we crossed paths but we weren't exactly working closely together --" Torrenz began, but just then John had to hold up a hand as he got a call over the radio.

"John," said Elizabeth's voice, "I think you should come to the infirmary. Rodney accidentally activated an Ancient device of some sort, and we don't know what it did."

"Is he all right?" John was already heading for the door, Torrenz forgotten.

"Well, he looks all right. He's complaining about the tests," Elizabeth said.

Faintly, John could hear Rodney saying 'Ow' in the background. Considering how directional the mikes on the radios were, he gathered that Rodney was complaining _loudly_. He grinned in relief. Couldn't be too bad, then. "Gotcha. I'll be right there."

* * *

The next few days were crazy, and with all the concern about Rodney turning into some kind of superhero or maybe dying, John didn't think about Torrenz much. It did occur to him once that Rodney's new mind-reading ability might be just the thing to clear up any misunderstandings. He'd just stopped by the lab to talk Rodney into trying the meditation thing again; with an eye on the clutter around Zelenka's former work area, he asked if Rodney had seen Torrenz lately.

Rodney snorted without looking up from his typing. "No, he's off sulking since I told him his power experiments are fatally flawed, and useless even if they could have worked." The computer next to him beeped, then started typing on its own. It was a little creepy to see the keys depressing by themselves.

John tore his gaze away from the computer and smirked. "Sulking, huh? I guess you know that because you read his mind?"

"Hmm? No, no, I haven't seen him since --" Rodney waved a hand vaguely "-- before."

So there was no magical clearing up of misconceptions. John wondered for a moment if Rodney would pick up on his own suspicions about what was going on, but Rodney never mentioned it. Apparently he really was trying to tune out others' thoughts.

Then Rodney did die (briefly), and lost his superpowers, and that was that. John had plenty to worry about with his own personnel, and a couple of challenging missions, and he nearly forgot about Dr. Torrenz until everything went to hell.

* * *

John wasn't asleep yet, just drifting with Rodney snuffling into his shoulder, when the call came over the radio -- Rodney's radio, so he couldn't answer it. Instead, he applied himself to waking Rodney up. That was no small task; Rodney worked hard and slept even harder. By the time he was mumbling back at John and trying to fit the radio over his ear, Carson's voice was getting pretty anxious. John figured there'd be a call for him pretty soon, or maybe a Marine pounding on the door. But now Rodney was sitting up and responding blearily to Carson, so the Marine wouldn't be needed.

"So what's up?" John asked when Rodney turned off the radio and sat blinking at the room vaguely.

"Morons," Rodney managed around a yawn. "Trying to kill themselves. _My_ morons, unfortunately." He levered himself up and pulled a pair of boxers free from the heap of clothes on the floor. "Wher'za bathrobe?"

"Over by the desk." It had slipped down from where it was draped over the desk chair. John headed for Rodney's drawers and pulled out one of the T-shirts Rodney sometimes slept in (when he wasn't sleeping naked after a round of mind-blowing sex). "Here, put this on."

Rodney stood there, boxers twisted on his hips, bathrobe in hand, and stared at the T-shirt as if he'd never seen one before.

"It'll cover the, uh . . ." John waved at his own collarbone, mirroring the position of an incriminating red blotch on Rodney's shoulder. "Sorry, I didn't mean to. Guess I got a little carried away."

A flush spread up Rodney's chest and neck until his face was almost the same color as the hickey. Since John was still bruised and sore from crash-landing an alien shuttlecraft, and Rodney was still upset about nearly losing him, they had ended up tonight with John lying flat doing none of the work while Rodney tried to drive him crazy -- and nearly succeeded. John had been grateful more than once for the excellent soundproofing of Atlantis, but they'd really put those Ancient designs to the test tonight.

John simplified things for Rodney by taking the bathrobe and handing him the T-shirt. While he pulled it on, John straightened the waistband of his boxers and then held the bathrobe for him to shrug into.

Rodney looked at the rumpled bed and then at John. "You going to be here?"

"Nah, I'll probably go back to my quarters. That way you won't have to worry about waking me when you come back." John patted Rodney's butt to push him toward the door. "Go on, go deal with your morons."

As it turned out, he barely had time to get back to his room and hadn't even taken his clothes off (again) when Carson came over the radio calling both him and Elizabeth to the infirmary. It looked like it would be a long night.

* * *

John reached the infirmary before Elizabeth, and found Carson fussing over several members of the science team. Rodney was nowhere in sight.

"Where's McKay?" John asked.

"I've put him in there, to cool off," said Carson, waving to the door of the isolation room. The video screen by the door showed Rodney pacing back and forth inside, wringing his hands.

_Cool off?_ "Wait, he has a fever? He was fine a few mi-- hours ago. What did he get exposed to?" John frowned at the scientists milling around, only now noticing that one of them was Dr. Torrenz.

"No no, it's his temper I wanted to cool," said Carson. "He was getting a bit obstreperous --"

"He punched me!" Dr. Torrenz blurted, pushing Carson's hands down to reveal a red and swollen nose.

"What? _Rodney?_" John glanced again at the isolation room video and realized Rodney wasn't wringing his hands but cradling one in the other. John turned to the other two scientists and one of them (Dr. Watson, who golfed) shrugged in bewilderment. The other (Teyla sparred with her sometimes -- Hudson? No, Hewston?) just looked annoyed.

"He wants me dead!" Torrenz insisted.

"Oh God, not this again," said Hewston.

"Now, lad --" Carson started.

"No, it's true! McKay set me up! He told us to check out the abandoned labs, and then when we encounter something dangerous he acts like it's all our fault!"

"Look," said Hewston, "we took reasonable precautions --"

"But we don't know what that radiation was," said Watson. "We might get sick! Not that I'm saying McKay wanted that to happen or anything, just . . ." He subsided unhappily.

"He did want it to happen, and I bet he knows exactly what the radiation is!" said Torrenz. "McKay's had it in for me since day one!"

"Now, wait a second," John objected, remembering how weirdly provoking Torrenz had been at that first meeting. Something was obviously not right here.

And of course that was when Elizabeth arrived, in time to hear everyone arguing about whether Rodney had or hadn't sent three of his own team to die. "What is going on here?" she demanded, raising her voice enough to cut through the babble.

A pause, and then John, Carson, Torrenz and Hewston all started to talk at the same time.

"Wait, hold it!" Elizabeth held up a hand to silence them. "Carson, you called me here. Why don't you tell me what's going on?"

Looking harried, Carson started to explain. "It seems these three thought midnight was a good time to carry out some exploratory work --"

"I had commitments during the day," said Hewston defensively.

"I have other work to do!" said Torrenz. "Important work!"

Hewston snorted.

"We get to sleep in tomorrow," said Watson with a shrug. "I figured it wasn't a big deal."

"I take it you found something dangerous?" Elizabeth asked, crossing her arms.

Hewston looked away with a grimace.

"An unidentified machine got, uh, activated," said Watson with a glance at the others.

"Hewston did it," said Torrenz. "She has the gene."

"It wasn't deliberate!" she countered.

"All right! We're not blaming anybody, here," Elizabeth cut in.

"McKay is," said Torrenz at the same time that Hewston said, "Dr. Torrenz is."

"Enough," Elizabeth snapped. "I would like Dr. Beckett to explain, _without_ interruptions."

"Aye, well . . ." Carson ran a hand through his hair. "They detected some radiation, so they turned off the device. Then they quite properly came to the infirmary to get themselves checked out. They appear fine, by the way, but I'll want to follow up with them. Anyway, I called Rodney since the science team is his bailiwick. When he got here, an argument started between Rodney and Dr. Torrenz."

"He's trying --" Torrenz started, but Hewston slapped him on the arm and shook her head sharply.

"Go on please, Dr. Beckett," said Elizabeth, her tone clipped with annoyance.

"Right. Dr. McKay accused the three of them of being careless and violating procedure, and Dr. Torrenz accused Dr. McKay of sending them all into a dangerous situation -- deliberately, he seems to think -- and matters deteriorated from there. Dr. Torrenz made some reference to someone from Dr. McKay's past, I forget the name --"

"Mary," Hewston supplied, at the same moment Torrenz said, "Dr. Mary Ingram."

"And that was when Dr. McKay punched him."

Elizabeth blinked. "Rodney? Threw a punch?"

"Aye, right on the nose. It's fractured but not displaced, fortunately. I got a nurse to help me separate them, put Rodney in the isolation room, and called you two. I should check on him --"

"In a moment, please. First I'd like to hear more about exactly what Dr. Torrenz was claiming." She gave the scientist a dark look.

Torrenz stiffened. "He wants me dead. He chose me for the most dangerous --"

"That's ridiculous!" Hewston interrupted. "McKay wasn't even the one who assigned us to those teams; it was Zelenka."

"I understood that there would be strict safety protocols in place for these explorations," said Elizabeth coldly. "Was that not done?"

"Yeah, yeah it was," said Watson hastily. "We got all these lists of procedures and stuff to follow --"

"Except it's impossible," Hewston added. "It would take years to get through all the labs if we followed those steps for every one. McKay doesn't take those precautions himself!"

"And that almost got him killed a few weeks ago!" said Torrenz. "He knows this is dangerous! Clearly, he shouldn't have been sending us to do his dirty work --"

"You mean the same work he does himself whenever he gets a free hour?" John put in. He moved forward, catching Torrenz's gaze. "Aside from it being a stupid way to try to kill someone -- and McKay's not stupid -- what _motive_ do you think McKay would have for setting you up?"

Torrenz swallowed. "I told you, he's had it in for me ever since I got here --"

"Because you've been _provoking_ him ever since you got here," said John. For Elizabeth's benefit, he added, "I've seen it myself, and heard about it from at least two other sources. Calling him by the wrong name, needling him about his dead girlfriend -- you've been trying to get under McKay's skin for a couple months, and now you accuse him of attempted murder. Why? What's your game, Torrenz?"

"It's not a game! He's done it before, at Area 51. I was there. McKay murdered Mary Ingram. I can prove it!"

* * *

When Carson went in to check on Rodney, John accompanied him.

"Finally!" Rodney exclaimed, jumping up from the cot in the isolation room. "I've been waiting in here for hours!"

"It's been under an hour, Rodney, don't exaggerate," said Carson in tones of exaggerated patience. "Let me see your hand."

"What's going on out there?" Rodney demanded, and "Ow!" as Carson uncurled his fingers gently.

John shrugged. "Well, Torrenz is flinging around a bunch of accusations --"

"Oh, please!" Rodney rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, I know. It sounds pretty far-fetched to me. But Elizabeth figures we should give him a hearing. That way, when we tell people he's blowing smoke out of his ass, they'll know we know what we're talking about."

Rodney frowned. "What's he saying about me?"

Carson exchanged glances with John. "Primarily that you set him and the others up to run into trouble tonight."

"But I didn't make the team assignments! Zelenka did! And how was I supposed to know they'd go do their exploring in the middle of the night?"

"Exactly," John pointed out. "You've got plenty of witnesses to back up your side of the story -- including Dr. Hewston and Dr. Watson, who don't seem to think you had anything to do with this radioactive thing they turned on."

"Of course I didn't!"

"So we're just going to listen to what he has to say, and then he'll get sent to Heightmeyer for some counseling about his paranoia problem, and that will be the end of it."

Rodney looked suspicious. "You're being too reasonable. What aren't you telling me?"

John put on his best innocent face, but Carson spilled the beans. "He's also made some accusations concerning your time at Area 51. This Dr. Ingram?"

"Oh God, not that again. He keeps bringing that up. It's just like seven years ago, when he kept harassing m-Mary to go out with him."

John stiffened. "He was harassing her? Was there any documentation of that?"

Rodney shook his head. "No, ah -- she never told anyone."

"Except you," Carson pointed out.

"Yes, right, because . . . because we were dating."

"So Torrenz was jealous that she was with you and not him?" John asked.

"Yes, that must be it!"

John bit his lower lip thoughtfully. There was something off about Rodney's reactions, and John didn't like it. But he supposed it was all going to come out in the open anyway. He'd just prefer if they had a little warning rather than getting blindsided by whatever Torrenz had as 'proof.' John knew there was no way Rodney had arranged the death of Mary Ingram -- not to mention fatal accidents for Drs Torrenz, Hewston, and Watson -- so whatever came up couldn't be _that_ bad. He just wished Rodney would stop trying to hide whatever it was, so they could deal with it.

Carson finished putting ointment on Rodney's bruised knuckles and gave him a cold pack to keep the swelling down.

Rodney massaged the cold pack nervously. "All right, where are we doing this?"

"Doing what?" said Carson.

"Hearing Torrenz out?"

"Ah, that'll be just us, buddy. Me, Carson, and Elizabeth."

"What?"

"Teyla's going to take you back to your quarters and keep you company --"

"What, now I'm under _guard_?"

"If I wanted you under guard, I would have called Ronon," John said drily. Elizabeth had suggested a Marine outside Rodney's door; he was glad he'd insisted on Teyla instead.

"Oh yes, because Ronon can flatten me in one second, where it takes one and a half for Teyla!"

"She'll keep you from going nuts while we talk to Dr. Torrenz, and then we'll come hear your side of the story."

"Why shouldn't I be there? You could get both sides of the story at the same time."

Carson sighed. "Based on your previous actions, we thought you'd have trouble keeping your opinions to yourself."

"By opinions, he means fists," John clarified. "And you know, you could be in the brig for that -- be glad you aren't."

Rodney scowled. "Don't I have the right to face my accuser in person?"

"Rodney, this isn't a criminal trial." _Yet_, John thought to himself.

"We don't even have a protocol in place for anything like that," said Carson. Which wasn't exactly true, but John figured it wouldn't help to correct him. Their sketchy plans for possible disciplinary inquiries had never been put into action, anyway.

"But if you want to look at it that way," John began.

Carson glared at him.

"I'm just saying, there's a reason the defense gets to speak last. In a criminal trial. Which this _isn't_. But see, we're doing you a favor by talking to Torrenz first."

"Doing me a favor, by confining me to quarters while Torrenz maligns me behind my back?"

"Come on, trust us, buddy. You know we're on your side. We're your friends."

"That's not what Elizabeth would say, is it? I bet she'd say it isn't a matter of friendship or 'sides,' and you have to consider the matter impartially."

Since that was pretty close to what Elizabeth actually had said when John objected to the plan himself, he couldn't think of a good comeback.

"Ach, come on, Rodney," Carson growled. "You know we don't believe a word the man says. But it's a serious accusation, and we've got to treat it with due consideration."

"Right!" said John. "And really, the guy's obviously nuts -- it's just a matter of letting him prove it. We're going to give him enough rope to shoot himself in the foot."

Rodney groaned. "And you say _he's_ nuts? I just hope your cross-examination makes more sense than your metaphors -- otherwise I'm completely screwed!"

* * *

Elizabeth and Dr. Torrenz were seated on opposite sides of the conference table. John took a seat at the end; Carson wavered and headed for the seat next to Elizabeth.

"All right," said Elizabeth. "So you all know, this is an investigation to gather and evaluate evidence -- not any kind of a formal proceeding."

"We don't even know if any laws were broken," John said.

Elizabeth nodded. "I looked up what official information we have available on the incident." She called up a file on her computer and angled it toward Carson so he could see it if he wanted. "Dr. McKay and Dr. Ingram worked together in the same department at Area 51 for nearly two years, researching alien technology recovered through the Stargate program. Dr. Torrenz overlapped with them there for a few months."

"Just over three months," Torrenz confirmed, looking earnest and reasonable -- an effect that was somewhat negated by the big white splint over his nose and the bruises starting to come out under his eyes.

Elizabeth continued, "The official account of Dr. Ingram's death in early 2000 -- or at least, what we have available without opening an unscheduled wormhole to Earth -- says that Dr. Ingram was adversely affected while working on some devices built by Machello."

"Wait, I recognize that name," said Carson. "Wasn't he the one who made the, er, the body-switching machine?"

"That's right. After SG-1 ran into trouble with some of the devices they recovered from Machello's lab, they packed them off to Area 51 in 1999. Then, in 2000, SG-1 found some more of his technology and discovered that it had been intended to deliver Goa'uld-killing technology around the galaxy. The method involved inserting devices --" She frowned at the laptop "-- I'm not quite clear on whether they were mechanical or biological --"

"Great," John muttered. "Our favorite kind."

"In any case, these devices would kill Goa'uld while leaving the hosts alive, but even though they didn't cause permanent harm to humans, they induced temporary symptoms of extreme paranoia and schizophrenia, including hallucinations."

John looked at Dr. Torrenz. "And you were working with this stuff?" Maybe that explained why the guy was so paranoid.

"No, I was working on Tollan technology," said Torrenz. Belatedly, he realized what John had been implying and frowned at him.

Elizabeth went on. "No one knows how exactly the devices were triggered, or why none of the previous work on these particular devices had shown the contamination. What the account does say is that one day, while working at Area 51, Dr. Ingram began to act irrationally. She obtained a gun and started to shoot at something only she could see, claiming that 'they' were after her. One of the security guards, not knowing what was going on, reacted --"

"With lethal force?" John guessed.

"That's right. At least, according to the official story. Dr. Torrenz appears to think there are some holes in that story." Elizabeth looked across at him expectantly.

Torrenz cleared his throat and opened his laptop. "Yes, yes, that's it exactly," he said. "Dr. Weir summarized it very nicely, but I just don't think that version makes sense. For one thing, no one who was there saw any of these supposed insanity-inducing devices. When SG-1 encountered them, the devices exited the bodies and were seen."

Elizabeth frowned. "As I recall from my review, no one died in that case -- the devices were tricked into leaving living bodies. Perhaps when the host dies, they don't exit."

"But the devices weren't found in the autopsy, either. So where did they go? If they were ever even there."

"Was anything else found that could have accounted for Dr. Ingram's behavior?" Carson asked.

"No. Or at least, not that they told us. But they might not. The labs at Area 51 were administered by the NID back then, and they liked to keep secrets. Even from their own employees and colleagues."

John leaned forward. "Why did you say 'no one who was there' saw the things? Weren't you there?"

Torrenz swallowed. "My lab was down the hall. I heard the shots and yelling, but the security guy told me to stay in my lab. I didn't really know what happened until it was all over." His computer beeped readiness, and he started typing. "But even aside from that, there was something strange going on that day, and Dr. McKay knew about it. Let me show you."

He turned the computer around so they could all see the screen. "This was Mary Ingram." A photograph came up of a woman around thirty with straight brown hair, well-endowed in the chest but also somewhat thick around the waist. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a flannel shirt unbuttoned over the top, and frowning thoughtfully at the camera. The background was a parking lot and some nondescript buildings that might have been anywhere.

Torrenz pressed a key and another photograph appeared, of the same woman sitting at a desk or lab table and half-turning to make an impatient grimace at whoever was taking the picture. "This is what she was like," Torrenz said. "She wore casual clothes almost all the time, stuff she wouldn't hesitate to get dirty while working. She was very dedicated, very conscientious -- a brilliant scientist, and usually annoyed whenever something distracted her from work."

"Sounds like McKay," John murmured.

"Aye, I'm sure they made a lovely couple," said Carson.

Torrenz scowled at them. "That was what everyone said. I just couldn't make her see that he wasn't good for her. He was using her, riding her coattails and passing off her brilliance as his own."

John coughed. "You're talking about _McKay_?" He'd never known Rodney to act impressed by anyone else's brains, much less try to steal their ideas. Even with Zelenka, whom Rodney actually respected (to an extent), it was always a collaborative or simply competitive relationship rather than exploitation -- and with the women in his group, even when he made them cry Rodney was generally scrupulous about giving them credit for their own ideas. John just couldn't picture Rodney doing what Torrenz was talking about, especially if this Mary Ingram had enough force of personality to stand up for herself.

"No one believed me, but I kept trying to tell them," Torrenz insisted. "But see for yourself." He reclaimed the computer and called up something else. "I obtained copies of the security videos from the day Mary died. She came to work _late_ that day -- almost noon. She came in with Dr. McKay. Look at this."

There was some grainy black-and-white footage of a hallway with two people coming along it. As they neared the camera, John could see that one of them was Rodney, and the other was a woman in high heels. She didn't look much like the photographs they'd seen earlier -- she was in a low cut dress that showed off her curves to best effect, her hair was up in some kind of elaborate braid, and she was smiling broadly. As they watched, she wobbled and nearly fell off her spiked heels; Rodney caught her arm and said something smilingly that made her throw back her head and laugh.

"Are they _drunk_?" Elizabeth asked, incredulous.

"Some of the people who met them that morning thought so," Torrenz said. "But supposedly the autopsy didn't find any alcohol in her blood, or only trace amounts."

Torrenz typed some more. "This is from the camera in their lab. McKay's desk is this one in the corner, and Mary's desk is down here, almost underneath the camera." There were computers and banks of electronics and some more exotic-looking devices on tables and shelves around the walls of the lab. Rodney and the high-heeled Dr. Ingram entered, paused briefly near Rodney's desk, then continued through the room to the bottom corner of the camera's view. They were apparently examining or discussing something on a bench in Dr. Ingram's work area, but all that could be seen were the tops of their heads and the occasional gesturing hand.

"This isn't exactly showing us much," John complained.

"Just wait," said Torrenz.

"What's down there?" asked Elizabeth. "What are they looking at?"

"Some of the alien devices Mary was studying."

"The ones Machello made?" Elizabeth pressed. John could follow her train of thought: those were the ones that had supposedly been booby-trapped. It would be nice to see if either scientist was touching them.

"Some others as well. I'm not sure which particular one they were looking at just then. But here, look at this." Torrenz waved at the screen as the couple moved back into the camera's view. Rodney left the room, while Mary Ingram sat and began typing furiously into a computer.

"Uh . . . huh," said John. "And what's wrong with that?"

"Just a second . . . here."

Rodney reappeared with two coffee mugs in hand. He walked up behind Dr. Ingram and started to extend one of them to her while sipping from the other, then visibly reversed himself and held out the second cup without actually drinking from it. Dr. Ingram turned away from the camera to look at the offered mug, and clearly shook her head.

"She doesn't want it," Torrenz narrated, "but he talks her into it. Look!"

Rodney gesticulated, and Dr. Ingram accepted the mug after a minute, taking a gulp and then making a grimace that could be seen even on the blurry footage.

Torrenz hit some keys, and the last few seconds replayed: Ingram shaking her head at the mug, Rodney insisting, Ingram drinking from it and then making an unhappy face before she set the drink aside.

"What was in the cup?" Carson asked.

"I don't know, but whatever it was, Mary didn't like it."

"Well, didn't they check out the drinks after the incident?" John said reasonably.

"When I asked about it -- after I saw this footage -- the security guy said they tested one mug of coffee and it was clean, but he didn't remember any second mug," said Torrenz.

"But you didn't actually see the forensic reports?" Elizabeth insisted.

"No, I didn't have clearance for that. The people who were in charge of the investigation basically told me to shut up and stay out of the way. I only heard about the autopsy and the other tests second-hand."

"Hang on a second," John drawled. "You got those security videos, but you're telling us you couldn't steal a couple of reports?"

Torrenz's bruised face flushed dully.

"Yes," said Elizabeth with a quelling glance at John. "While I can't condone breaking into secured files -- even with the most altruistic of motives -- it does seem your investigation was less than complete."

"These videos were stored on a computer with minimal encryption," said Torrenz. "The investigation and autopsy notes were on paper, behind doors that were locked and guarded. Computer files, I can hack. Breaking into a secure vault? Not so much."

"And the reports were never emailed to anyone?" asked Carson.

"If they were, it was under too much encryption for me to find them."

"Well, if you're trying to make out that he drugged her drink or something, you're a long way short of proof with what you've got," said John. On the screen, Rodney and Dr. Ingram had settled down to typing on different computers, looking like colleagues (drinking buddies? lovers?) and not much like murderer and victim.

"Come on, it's pretty suspicious, don't you think?" Torrenz rallied. "First they show up late, acting so weird people think they're drunk. Then he makes her drink something she doesn't want. And then, half an hour later . . ." He fast-forwarded until the little clock in the corner showed that twenty-odd minutes minutes had passed.

The two scientists were still working at their computers, but after a moment Dr. Ingram stopped typing and turned her head as if watching something on the floor. She spoke, and Rodney peered in the same direction, seeming confused. Ingram pointed, stood up, spoke some more with an attitude of increasing alarm, but Rodney still looked baffled about what she was indicating.

Then Ingram ran to the desk in the corner, tapping hastily on a keypad before bending to a lower drawer.

"Wait," said John, leaning forward. "Didn't you say that was McKay's desk?"

"That's the next suspicious thing," said Torrenz. "Why did Mary know the combination to Dr. McKay's desk? Why did she know exactly where he kept . . . that!"

Ingram stood up from her crouch by the desk, brandishing a gun. John winced at the way she waved it around, pointing it right at Rodney several times. The muzzle flashed as Ingram fired at something off to the side.

Rodney's hands were out, his mouth moving rapidly as he tried to reason with her. He stepped in her direction but tripped on the chair she had abandoned. Ingram turned toward the flailing limbs, and John saw the gun flash again.

"Shit!" he gasped. "Did she just shoot McKay?"

"Well, yes, but he wasn't seriously hurt," said Torrenz.

Rodney was on the floor, hand clamped to his side and face contorted in a grimace. Ingram looked surprised; she started toward him, bending over him while she kept throwing glances at whatever it was that had frightened her. As she moved, one high-heeled shoe twisted beneath her and she threw her arms out for balance, the gun she still clutched pointing briefly in the direction of the doorway --

And another figure appeared in the door, uniformed and armed, firing at Ingram. John counted three shots, obviously center mass from the way Ingram convulsed as they hit her. Any one of them might have been fatal.

Rodney was yelling at the guard, crawling to Ingram's side, reaching for her with a hand already visibly smeared with his own blood. Even in the grainy soundless video, his anguish was clear. John felt his throat ache as he watched Rodney cradle the body of the woman he'd been laughing and joking with just a short time before.

Swallowing hard, John looked up. Carson seemed a little dazed, as if he wasn't quite sure what he'd just seen. Elizabeth was frowning deeply. Torrenz was watching the three of them expectantly, the maroon bruises around his eyes making him look like some alien raccoon.

"That's it?" John rasped. "That's your 'proof?'"

"Yes, that's it." Torrenz blinked his swollen eyes. "Don't you see? It makes no sense. It just doesn't add up."

Biting down on his anger, John turned to Elizabeth and kept his tone light. "Can we go back to bed now? 'Cause I was in the middle of this really awesome dream . . ."

"What?" Torrenz yelped. "No! You all saw it. He drugged her! He set her up!"

"I don't think we saw the same thing you saw, lad," said Carson gravely. "It looked to me like a terrible tragedy, and Rodney suffered as well as Dr. Ingram."

"The proof is right there!"

"That isn't proof," John growled, "and you know it. If you really thought that video proved something, you would have taken it to the authorities a long time ago. Instead you farted around making insinuations and weird little threats, blackmailing McKay into giving you extra lab space --"

"I was trying to get him to admit the truth, but he doesn't have a conscience. He never really cared about her. He was just using her! He didn't even go to her funeral!"

"How soon was that after he was _shot_?" John snapped.

Elizabeth lifted a hand slightly in John's direction, warning him to keep his temper leashed. She didn't look very happy herself, though. "I agree with Colonel Sheppard. There was nothing particularly incriminating about what you've shown us."

"But -- the drinks!" he insisted.

"There are some anomalies, I admit, but none of them come close to proving that any wrongdoing happened, much less that Dr. McKay was responsible."

"But what about the out of character behavior? And how did Mary know his desk combination, and exactly where that gun was? We weren't supposed to tell anyone our combination!"

"Maybe he broke the rules because they were dating," John suggested. "Maybe he showed her the gun to impress her. And coming in late -- you know, Torrenz, most people, when they see two co-workers come in at noon, laughing and dressed in fancy clothes, they don't immediately think 'conspiracy to commit murder.'"

Torrenz sputtered.

Elizabeth went on, "This doesn't constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt; in fact, it doesn't even raise my suspicions much except concerning the NID's management of Area 51, which is in the past anyway. But just to make sure this matter is completely settled, I will request copies of the official documents concerning Mary Ingram's death. If they weren't destroyed during the NID purge, we should have the autopsy and forensics reports within a couple of weeks. However, in the meantime, I see no need to hold Dr. McKay under suspicion or arrest."

"He tried to kill us!"

"He will receive a reprimand for striking a co-worker," Elizabeth continued coldly, "but there will be a note that he was provoked. You, Dr. Torrenz, will be off-duty for the next two weeks. You're not confined to quarters, but you _will_ stay away from Dr. McKay and his lab."

"I can't believe this!"

Elizabeth's voice was rising steadily. "You will also have several sessions with Dr. Heightmeyer. I'll consider further measures once we have the official reports in hand. And now I think it's past time that we all get back to our beds."

"You're just sweeping this under the rug. I should have known you would take his side."

"Come on, lad," said Carson wearily. "Let's get you some more analgesics. I think the pain from your nose is making you a mite tetchy."

John was too angry to appreciate Carson's gentle humor; he was more inclined to finish what Rodney had started with the alterations to Torrenz's face. He slipped out of the conference room quickly to get away from Torrenz and his computer, frozen on the image of Rodney cradling his girlfriend's corpse.

"John, wait!" Elizabeth called behind him as he was halfway down the hall to the transporter. "Are you going to talk to Rodney now?"

"Yeah, he's probably just about stewed himself into a fit," John said. "Must be driving Teyla crazy, too."

"I'll come with you; I'd like to speak to him about this."

"You're not really worried about those 'anomalies,' are you?" John asked skeptically. But even as he said it, his mind replayed Rodney starting to drink from the one mug, then stopping himself and holding it out to Ingram instead.

"Not worried, no. But I do think that getting an explanation sooner rather than later might help us nip this in the bud."

"Hate to tell you, I think it's past the 'bud' stage already."

"Well, better now than never," said Elizabeth. "I don't know how long it might take them to scrounge up those papers on Earth. Dr. Torrenz was right about one thing: the NID was not exactly known for their eagerness to share information. A lot of paperwork apparently just disappeared."

John sighed. "Do you think anything McKay says will change Torrenz's mind?"

"I don't know -- that's partly why I want to see exactly what Rodney will say."

"Fair enough." John waved her ahead of him into the transporter.

* * *

When the door to Rodney's quarters opened, John was surprised the scientist wasn't standing immediately on the other side, demanding news. Instead, he was at the desk in the corner, typing at warp speed on his laptop. Teyla was sitting cross-legged on the foot of the bed (which had been made sometime in the last couple of hours, and John _knew_ it wasn't by Rodney), watching with a bemused expression. She glanced up, met John's gaze, and tilted her head toward Rodney with a canted eyebrow that held more resignation than worry.

"Hey, buddy," said John carefully.

"What? Oh, yes, you're here," said Rodney, swiveling his chair. He was fully dressed now, the bathrobe tossed over a corner of the desk. He did a double-take as he noticed Elizabeth standing in the doorway also. "We need to talk."

"Yeah." John rubbed his chin nervously. "Torrenz's so-called evidence is pretty bogus, but there are a couple things we thought we should clear up." He _really_ didn't want to ask Rodney about a former lover's last hours, but it had to be done.

Rodney just blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"Hello? Dr. Torrenz? The guy who insists you cook your colleagues and eat them for breakfast?"

Elizabeth's elbow jostled John's. It might have been an accident, except for how it wasn't. "Rodney," she said gently, "we'd like to ask you just a few questions about Dr. Ingram."

Rodney froze, and for a moment John saw panic in his eyes. "Wait, you're still talking about something that happened over seven years ago? Nonono, we have much bigger problems than that."

There went the hairs on the back of John's neck again, insisting that Rodney's reaction was all wrong.

"All right," said Elizabeth with a stiff calm that told John she had noticed the same wrongness. "But this will just take a few minutes to cover -- why don't we get it out of the way first, and then we can discuss what else you've found."

"No, we need to deal with this right away!" Rodney insisted. "Look, I've been checking the Ancient database, and I found out what that machine was supposed to do."

"Which machine?" John asked, his mind on the array of alien devices in the video of the lab in Area 51.

Rodney made an impatient noise. "The one Dr. Hewston activated just a couple of hours ago! The weird radiation that they detected?"

"Oh, right," said John, slanting his eyes toward Elizabeth. She looked back at him with a certain wild desperation, and he bet she was thinking the same thing he was: they would all get wrapped up in this latest crisis, and the Torrenz issue would fall by the wayside only to come back and bite them all in the ass later.

"I'm telling you, these Ancients were nuts. I have no idea what they were thinking when they built this thing, but it emits a particular focused radiation that causes--"

"Hang on," said John. "This sounds like something Zelenka should hear, don't you think?"

"Huh? Yes, I suppose --"

"He's going to be working with you on it, so you might as well explain it just once," John urged. "He can be here in a couple of minutes."

"Well, I --"

"I can go and alert Dr. Zelenka, if that will help," Teyla volunteered on cue. John nodded at her gratefully and shifted aside so she could get out the door.

"All right, but we should --" Rodney began.

"We should use this opportunity to clear up those last few questions," Elizabeth said firmly.

"Oh, no, we don't have to --"

"Come on, Rodney, this will just take a minute," John pressed. "You know Torrenz has these theories about the day Dr. Ingram died, right?"

Rodney swallowed and nodded.

"But there must be simple answers for this stuff, since of course you weren't really responsible for -- what happened. So why don't you just tell us what was going on, and we can put this behind us before we move on to the next thing?"

"What do you want to know?" Rodney's chin was high, his mouth tight with worry.

Elizabeth picked up the thread. "For one, how was it that Dr. Ingram knew the combination to your desk, and where your gun was kept?"

Rodney blinked and rocked on his feet, like someone braced for a blow that doesn't land. "What? She . . . I don't know, I guess she must have, have seen it sometime. I mean, we, we shared a lab, we worked together a lot -- she could have seen the combination almost any day. And I might have mentioned the gun or something. Does it matter?"

"That's not the only question," Elizabeth continued. "Dr. Torrenz thought you and Dr. Ingram were behaving oddly that day. I gather it was very unusual for you to be late to work?"

Rodney was blinking rapidly, still seeming confused by the questions. "We were late because we had, uh -- we spent the night together. We were, um, up late, and we, we did some things together in the morning -- shopping and, you know." Rodney grimaced as if he realized how incomplete that explanation sounded. "Look, it was, it was a romantic night out, okay? We didn't, uh, didn't actually formalize anything but it was sort of implied -- I mean, we discussed the possibility of, of marriage --"

"Okay," John broke in, unable to listen anymore. "We get the picture."

"Is that really relevant?"

"It was just something that was out of the ordinary on that day," Elizabeth soothed. "There is one last thing, though." She glanced at John.

"Rodney. What was in the drink you gave Dr. Ingram that day?" John asked.

"Huh?"

"We saw . . . Torrenz had a video. You brought in a couple of drinks and you were about to sip from one but you stopped and then gave it to her instead. Was it, uh, what was in it?"

"Oh!" Rodney snapped his fingers in memory. "It was orange juice. I almost drank from it by accident but caught myself in time."

John considered that. "Why were you giving her orange juice?"

"Oh. Well." Was Rodney actually _blushing_? "She -- Mary liked it, but she hadn't been drinking any because we were going out. It was part of that romantic night we had; I found out . . . she'd been giving up something she enjoyed for me, and I never realized. So the next morning I got her a glass and explained it would be safe so long as, you know, so long as we didn't kiss for a couple of hours afterward. Which we wouldn't anyway, at work."

This explanation, even as awkward and halting as it was, rang true to John's ears. The contents of the drink had been the only really serious question Torrenz brought up, and it all made sense in this context. He found himself relaxing and giving Rodney a reassuring smile.

"She didn't seem to like it, though," Elizabeth pointed out. "She didn't even drink it all."

Rodney shrugged. "Uh, well, maybe it was bad or something. I got it out of the break room refrigerator, and, you know, I'm not really a judge of quality in orange juice." Then he frowned. "Wait a second. Are you saying Torrenz thought I _drugged_ her drink?

"We didn't really buy it," John said quickly. "It just looked kinda weird on the video, you know, with you refusing to drink it but giving it to her instead."

"And supposedly there was no toxicology test done on the contents," Elizabeth said. "Is that true?"

"Well, they probably couldn't recover enough to test," said Rodney. Catching their puzzled looks, he said, "What, you didn't see that part? The mug of orange juice got shattered in the, uh . . . by a stray bullet. It splattered all over me, my face and eyes. I didn't even realize at first, what with, um, being shot and . . . everything else. When the allergic reaction started, it was, well, the worst I'd ever had. I was in the hospital for several days."

"So you missed the funeral."

There was a glitter of moisture in Rodney's eyes. "The funeral was on the other side of the country, but I missed . . . her mother came, and I wanted to talk to her, but I couldn't. It was . . . a bad time for me."

"I can see that." John hesitated and cleared his throat, looking to Elizabeth.

She nodded; they were both satisfied with the answers to the questions Torrenz had raised. Before Elizabeth could deliver an executive summary, though, Teyla reappeared with Dr. Zelenka in tow.

* * *

John had thought the ascend-or-die machine was the craziest thing the Ancients could have come up with, but it seemed he was wrong. Exploding tumors were worse.

"I don't get it," Dr. Watson complained, as John hustled him toward the infirmary in his pajamas. "I don't have the Ancient gene. So it couldn't have affected me, right?"

"We're not sure, that's why we need to check," said John soothingly even as he kept the guy moving with a hand at his elbow. "That radiation you detected, was it directed specifically at one or two people?"

"Uh . . . no, not that I know of."

"So there you go. You may have been affected, so we have to make sure." Privately, John thought the Ancients were perfectly capable of turning random Pegasus humans into involuntary suicide bombers, with or without their knowledge. So the tumor-inducing machine probably didn't give a damn if Dr. Watson had the gene or not.

"But Dr. Beckett scanned us, and we were fine!"

"And now he knows exactly what to look for, so he's going to do another scan." John sighed in relief as the infirmary came into sight.

Teyla had apparently been faster in her people-retrieving, because Dr. Hewston was already under the scanner. Torrenz, who'd been in the infirmary anyway, was standing back in a corner frowning deeply at Rodney, who was typing on a computer and pretending to ignore him.

"Here he is, Doc," John said, urging Watson into the scan room just as Carson gestured to Hewston that she was free to move.

The stiff set of Carson's face said the news wasn't going to be good, but he nodded politely at Dr. Watson as a nurse guided him into position. "Thank you, Colonel. I'll be ready to discuss the results with you in just a few minutes." He bent to his computer again to start another scan.

Radek was just directing a couple of Marines through the front door of the infirmary with a large . . . something on a pallet. Radek pointed them over at a corner where a similar unit was waiting already, then bustled off while the Marines got busy unloading.

John frowned, reminded of the stacked units on the Aurora. "Are those stasis pods?"

"Hmm," said Rodney, still typing.

"Did I know we had those?"

"Yes. Old Elizabeth from the other timeline, remember? But we haven't tried using them yet -- the control interface is not the same as what we saw on the Aurora. And now I'm trying to rewrite the interface basically from scratch, so it would help a lot if you stopped distracting me." Rodney snapped and pointed. "You -- um, Hudson."

"Hewston," she said darkly.

"Yes, yes. Help those Neandertals get the power hooked up."

Torrenz stepped forward, scowling as much as he could with his eyes swollen half shut. "You're not seriously planning to put us in stasis, are you?" he demanded.

"It's an option," said Rodney shortly.

"Are you going to let him get away with this?" Torrenz demanded of John.

"With what, trying to buy some time to save your sorry life?" Rodney demanded.

"He's trying to shut us up. Get us out of the way so he can, can . . ." Torrenz trailed off, imagination apparently failing him at this hour of the morning.

"So I can what?" Rodney turned from the computer. "What exactly do you think I'm trying to accomplish here?"

"He's trying to get away with murder!" Torrenz blurted.

"Okay, that's enough," said John. "Break it up. Rodney, get back to work. And Torrenz . . . shut _up_."

"Thank you," Hewston muttered where she was crouched, connecting a maze of cables with assistance from Teyla.

"Has Dr. Weir arrived yet? Ah, good, here she is," said Carson. "I have the results of the scans. If you'll step in here?"

John, Rodney, Elizabeth, and the three irradiated scientists all crowded into the scan room to see the displays there.

"It's confirmed," said Carson. "Just as the database described, each of you has a mass behind the breastbone." He waved at a display showing something highlighted in red tucked behind someone's lungs and heart.

"Wait, even me?" Dr. Watson said. "I don't even have the gene."

"That seems to make no difference," Carson told him. "Dr. Hewston's is the largest, probably because she was closest to the machine."

"But I feel fine!" Hewston protested. "I just had a few hiccups, and they've stopped now."

"They might have been caused by an irritation of the diaphragm from the growth nearby," Carson explained.

Torrenz pressed his hand to his chest and looked like he was about to throw up.

"Dr. Hewston's growth is nearly two point five centimeters in diameter, and the others are about half that size. We actually did see a shadow on Dr. Hewston's earlier scan from two hours ago, but didn't identify it as abnormal at that resolution. Now that we know it was real, that gives us an estimate of the growth rate." Carson pointed to another chart that showed a couple of rising lines shaded in red. "Rodney, did you find out from the database how large the growths are when they, er, go off?"

Rodney swallowed. "I don't know about size, but the mass would be around one-half to one kilogram, depending on how quickly the explosive chemicals can be isolated from the person's blood."

Carson frowned. "So not much larger than, say, a heart, allowing for denser tissue. Dr. Hewston could reach that point anytime in the next six to twenty-four hours. The others will likely take a bit longer, perhaps another few hours."

"Wait, you're saying I have six hours to live?!" Hewston yelped.

Torrenz gave an odd sort of moan. Watson looked paler than his complexion should have allowed.

"We're working on extending that, lass," Carson soothed. "In the meantime, it's probably best that all of you stay calm -- not too much activity, and no food."

"Right," said Rodney. "Deny the tumors the raw material to grow -- good thinking. I'll just, ah . . ." He opened his computer and set it on a medical tray, making little metallic sounds as he typed.

"Hang on," Torrenz objected. "Your answer to all this is to put us into stasis? Why not just remove the tumors?"

Carson grimaced. "The word 'tumour' is a bit misleading -- these are actually new, functional organs growing inside you. We expect we will be removing them, but there are a few things we need to understand first: how they become explosive, what kind of blood supply they've built . . . whether we need to do something to prevent them growing back, for goodness' sake. So we need to buy a bit of time to study the database, and take more scans. If we remove the organs now, we'll be doing three experimental surgeries simultaneously without knowing what to expect for the recovery."

"Take mine out now," Hewston said quickly. "You can learn what you need about the recovery process from me."

"No, wait, why does she get to go first?" Torrenz protested. "If you do it while the thing is smaller it should go more smoothly, right? Delaying our treatment will make it harder."

Carson held up his hands. "It's meant to be a rest day today, y'know. One of my doctors and a couple of nurses are already off on the mainland -- I was planning to head there myself for a bit of fishing. I'm not sure I can put together three surgical teams at the drop of a hat, especially for an unknown procedure. Give us some time to get the details worked out, that's all I'm asking."

"This was _his_ idea, wasn't it?" Torrenz demanded, pointing at Rodney. "He wants us on ice so we can't object to whatever he has planned."

"Oh, give it a break, already," said Hewston wearily.

"Actually, it was Zelenka's idea," said Rodney, turning from his computer.

"Aye," Carson confirmed. "And I'm the one who wanted time to study the growths better. Dr. Zelenka suggested stasis to slow the metabolism, pause the growth of these organs while we figure out how best to deal with them."

"Assuming, of course, that stasis works normally on these things," Rodney added. "They're designed to go off on a Wraith ship a few hours after culling. That means they might keep growing when the vic-- person is in a Wraith cocoon."

Carson sighed; they must have discussed this already. "Cocooning isn't quite the same as stasis, Rodney."

"But some of the processes are similar," said Rodney. "I'm just saying --"

"You wrote the interface?" Torrenz asked, then turned to John and Elizabeth. "You let him write the control system? He could set it up to fail, and then claim it wouldn't have worked anyway!"

"Oh yes, because I really want to have three deaths on my conscience just when I've gotten you halfway trained," Rodney snapped.

"See?!" said Torrenz triumphantly. "He admits it!"

"Have you heard of the concept of _sarcasm_?" Rodney retorted. "For the billionth time, I _don't_ murder my subordinates!"

"You've already done it once. I don't want to be another Mary Ingram!"

"I did not kill Mary Ingram!" Rodney yelled back, getting in Torrenz's face. "It was an accident -- I never wanted that to happen!"

John was stepping forward, trying to say something calming and laying a hand on Rodney's arm, but no one paid attention to him.

"What, because you were in _love_ with her?" Torrenz sneered.

"No, dammit, because I _am_ Mary Ingram!"

John would have assumed he'd misheard, except that everyone else seemed as shocked and bewildered as he felt. Carson's scanner fell with a clatter. Elizabeth dropped her crossed arms and her jaw simultaneously. Torrenz just stared, his mouth framing the word 'What?' but no sound coming out.

John was frozen. His hand was still on Rodney's arm, but it had gone lax.

"Oh, bloody hell," said Carson into the silence. "The body-switching machine? You used that?"

"It was an accident," Rodney said, quiet now. "It was all an accident." He stepped back from Torrenz and out from under John's hand, wiping his eyes wearily.

"So, you're . . . not . . ." John was having trouble wrapping his mind around this idea. Rodney wasn't Rodney?

"You swapped bodies," said Torrenz, "and then she -- he? -- was . . ."

"My body was killed," said Rodney (not Rodney?). "So there was no way of swapping back."

"And you never _told_ anyone?" Elizabeth asked.

"As a matter of fact, I did," Rodney snapped, life coming back into his (_her?_) face and voice. "I told my boss, Colonel Simmons. Who used the information to blackmail me into doing things I didn't want to do. It took me years to get enough dirt on _him_ to get out from under his thumb. Are you surprised I didn't tell my next boss?"

"But . . . you . . . how . . .?" John really wasn't getting this.

McKay's eyes rolled. "It was an _accident_. I was working on Machello's inventions. I asked Rodney to help me move the body-swapping machine, and the precautions that had worked before didn't work for some reason -- we got swapped. You can't just switch back; the machine has an interlock to prevent it. You have to get other people involved. It was already evening, not many people around, and . . . well, we were embarrassed by the mistake. We thought maybe we could find a way around the interlock. And anyway, we, um, we . . ." His face reddened.

"You wanted to experiment with your new bodies," Elizabeth guessed. Apparently she was grasping this faster than John.

"Well, yes. So we, um . . . right. We got in pretty late the next day. We discussed if there was anyone we could trust to help us switch back without getting us into trouble, but it was a pretty cut-throat environment at Area 51. We didn't trust Colonel Maybourne or Colonel Simmons -- which was later borne out, I might add. So we were trying to figure out how the interlock worked, and next thing I knew Rodney was yelling and shooting . . ."

"It was his desk," Torrenz said wonderingly. "Of course he knew the combination, and where the gun was."

". . . and I got shot and then my body was lying dead on the floor in front of me, and then I had my first round of anaphylactic shock -- which is _not_ something you ever want to experience, believe me -- and I was in the hospital so I didn't even get to speak to my mother when she came to claim the body, and I would have spilled the whole story to everyone except I told Simmons first and he threatened me, held the non-disclosure agreement over my head and said he'd put me in prison . . ."

"How do we know it's true?" said Torrenz, recovering some of his usual belligerence. "Can you prove it?"

Not-Rodney sighed. "How? I know things only Mary Ingram would know, but there's no one who can corroborate it. Certainly no one on Atlantis!"

"No, wait -- try this. What did I say to Mary in the break room the day before, um . . . the day before?"

"I don't remember! You were being an asshole, that's what I remember. And you tripped me, right onto the floor."

"Only to keep you from kneeing me in the crotch!"

"You deserved it!" Not-Rodney paused and looked surprised. "I never told anyone about that. Too embarrassing."

"I thought you probably wouldn't." Torrenz's eyes went haunted and his voice deepened a register. "Mary?"

"Oh, nonono. Wait, stop, don't get any ideas. I'm a different person now. I've _been_ a different person for seven years. You're not going to start this again. I never wanted anything to do with you in the first place!"

"So, you just . . ." _took over Rodney McKay's entire life,_ John was going to say, but he was speaking too slowly, absorbing it all too slowly, and Hewston spoke over him.

"This is all _fascinating_," she inserted, "but some of us are dying here?"

Rodney jumped and reached for his computer. "Right! Yes, working on it. The interface is almost ready. Go see if Zelenka has finished the initialization and self-checks on the stasis units."

"What if the stasis doesn't work, like you said?" Watson asked while Hewston headed out the door.

"Then we'll try something else, but it will happen faster if everyone stops distracting me!" It looked and sounded just like Rodney, just like the man John knew. But it was really someone completely different.

"McKay . . ." he murmured uneasily.

"Later!" snapped the person pretending to be Rodney McKay. "We can talk it to death later."

"That sounds like a good plan," Elizabeth said firmly. "For now I think we should clear out and give them room to work." She waved Watson and Torrenz out of the room; Carson was already back at work reviewing the scans. "John?"

He blinked and followed Elizabeth from the infirmary in a daze. She took the transporter first, and when the door opened again John just stood there staring into the empty chamber. "Okay," he said at last. "Didn't see that coming."

* * *

John succeeded pretty well in not thinking about it for the next few hours. He went for a run in the gray pre-dawn light, his feet pounding the piers in mindless rhythm. Then he showered, letting himself just enjoy the heat and the streaming water and getting clean. It was easy enough, like that, to avoid thinking of Emily and their last confrontation, where she told him tearfully that she couldn't be what he expected, and anyway she'd never fallen out of love with her ex. Or Scott, when John had tried really hard not to expect anything at all, explaining that it had been great but he was engaged to a pretty girl now and wasn't really _like that_ anyway. John wasn't thinking about any of that.

But when he went to the mess -- too hungry to skip breakfast after being up all night and then running -- it was harder in the presence of people to forget what had happened, how he'd been screwed over yet again in a way he he'd never even known was possible. He chose a table out on the far end of the balcony, where he could watch the sunrise, but it still felt like heading back into a combat zone after not enough leave.

Then Rodney -- or Mary, or whoever -- plunked a loaded tray down across from him, and any hope John had of avoiding the issue faded away.

"Finally!" the scientist said, and bit into a muffin with a hum of satisfaction, chasing it with a swig of coffee. "They're in stasis now, so we have a little breathing room. Which is good, because I'm starving."

"Yeah, good," John murmured, separating his hash browns with a fork and then mashing them back together again.

"So what did you want to ask?" he said, after putting a thorough dent in his breakfast.

John shrugged. "Nothing important. You were right the first time. Why talk it to death?"

"Huh." It was a very _Rodney_ sound, and John felt his gut react despite what his head was saying. He'd always loved Rodney's little noises. Including the eating noises, and the food-appreciation noises that usually followed. Hearing those normal, everyday sounds from across the table now was really messing with his mind.

"'Sfunny," the scientist said around a mouthful of egg. "I would have thought I'd be right there with you. Y'know, in the why-talk-about-it-if-you-can't-change-it camp." A pause for another big bite. "But, I don't know, maybe it's because I had to keep it quiet for so long, now I almost feel like I _want_ to talk about it."

"Look, I'm not really into that sort of thing, R--" John caught himself.

"What sort of thing?"

"That, you know." John gestured at the figure across the table and lowered his voice, even though no one was near. "Sex changes, identity changes, total body makeovers. Why not just be who you are?"

He clunked his coffee cup down too hard. "Come on, it's hardly the same thing. I didn't choose this!"

"Didn't you?"

"No! That's what the word _accident_ means. None of that was planned or intended."

"But, if you had just done the reversal thing right away --"

"Since when do you get hung up on might-have-beens? If we had done the reversal, maybe Rodney wouldn't have died, but there's no saying he would end up at the SGC, or at Atlantis. Maybe he would have died anyway, or I would have died instead, and how much trouble would this expedition be in without me here?"

"Still --"

"Still, nothing. God, you sound like Torrenz! It was an accident. It happened. And once it was over there was no way I could undo it. I just had to go on and learn to live with a new body, a new name, a new life."

"Yeah, you were kinda quick to take over the guy's life and career, weren't you?" John drawled. "Did he get more awards than you, or what? Is that why you're always looking at all those diplomas?"

His face reddened with annoyance. "I look at his diplomas because I'm trying to _honor_ the life I fell into. I was forced into this, John. When I stepped into Rodney McKay's shoes, I gave up my own life. I never saw my mother again; she died the next year. My brother mourned me as dead, and I'll never speak to him again. So don't talk to me about what I got out of this. Those things are just consolation prizes compared to what I gave up."

"And what about Jeannie? Is she a consolation prize too?"

He sighed and swiped a hand down his face. "God, I was so terrified she'd figure out something was wrong, but it's true, she and Rodney never were that close. I saw how they interacted the one time she visited Area 51, and it wasn't that hard to fill the part. It was a lot worse when Rod showed up."

"Huh?" John hadn't even thought about Rod.

"He's more Rodney than I ever was. I mean, everyone always said we were just alike, and hardly anyone noticed when I ended up in his place -- the ones who did notice anything just put it down to grief. But Rod, he was the real thing, what Rodney McKay should have been, and I just couldn't imitate it that well. I was sure Jeannie would figure it out then, but she never did."

And that left John wondering if he would even have liked the real Rodney McKay. Would he have gotten the same oily feeling he did whenever he talked to Rod, instead of being attracted? "What about me?" he asked, turning it around.

"What?"

John checked the area for eavesdroppers again. "Are you really gay? Or just a straight woman in a man's body?"

He rolled his eyes. "Does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

"All right, then, I guess I'd say this body is still more attracted to women than to men, but my mind is more attracted to men than to women. Samantha Carter was the first woman I met that my mind and body could agree on, but she wanted nothing to do with me."

"What about Katie?"

He grimaced. "She's . . . sweet. Very understanding. She might even understand the real story. But mainly I'm thinking the best way to honor Rodney McKay would be to pass along his genes. I would need an understanding woman for that. Understanding and, um, patient."

"And me?"

A small, crooked smile. "Well, I can't pass along genes with you, but . . . you're like Carter, for me. You're the first man that appealed to my body as well as my mind. I know -- that is, Rodney told me he'd experimented a little in college, but I don't really know how far it went."

"So is that why you like to be fucked? Because you're really a woman?"

He went white and thin-lipped, just staring at John. And before John could decide whether to take it back or grab his sense of betrayal and push harder, their tense silence was broken by a resounding **BOOM**.

* * *

The infirmary room where the stasis units had been set up was a shambles: no lights, acrid smoke that burned the lungs, flashlights waving wildly, debris (some of it appallingly red and slimy) all over the floor.

"What the hell happened?" Rodney yelled as Beckett came into view hovering over a gurney. John had to look twice to realize the patient was Dr. Watson, bloody and oxygen-masked.

"I don't know," Beckett coughed, waving the nurses ahead with the gurney. "Hewston's dead. The explosion destroyed her stasis unit and damaged Dr. Watson's. We have five more injured, two of them badly. Dr. Torrenz is all right, but his unit lost power -- we have to get him out of there." He turned back into the smoke.

"How the hell did this happen?" Rodney demanded. "We confirmed that the tumors stopped growing under stasis."

"I know that, Rodney!" Carson's patience was apparently limited.

"I had scanners on all of them! Where's the computer that was monitoring the output?"

"Look for it yourself, man, I have patients to tend to." Carson joined Zelenka, who was holding a mask over his face and working on the one remaining stasis unit, scorched and scarred by shrapnel.

Rodney grabbed a flashlight from a passing Marine and played it over the other two stasis units -- a very gory one obviously destroyed from the inside out, and one blackened and partially caved in by the explosion. "The computer was right here," Rodney muttered to himself, standing in front of the destroyed unit. He suppressed a cough as he turned and played the flashlight over the opposite side of the room.

"There," John said, spotting a flash of plastic beneath an overturned metal table. He pulled the warped metal aside to reveal a very battered and dead tablet computer.

Covering his mouth with one hand against the smoke, Rodney crouched beside the computer as if it were an injured person too delicate to move. "Damn. It's not going to be easy to recover any data from this."

Carson turned to them as the medics started to wheel Dr. Torrenz away. "I checked the scans just a couple of minutes before the explosion," he said. "Dr. Hewston's tumour was less than 250 grams, hardly different than when we put her in there. How could this happen if the organ was still so small?"

"I don't know!" Rodney protested, cradling the dead computer carefully. He trailed after Carson out of the smoky room, and John followed.

"I think I know," said a new voice. Dr. Biro was standing in the doorway of one of the infirmary's other rooms. "The overflow has been set up in room five," she told Carson. "Dr. Cole is seeing to the other casualties. They're prepping room eight as an OR, since it's further from the others."

"Right, that's where we're headed, then," Carson said. "Make a display with the details of that procedure we were discussing; we'll have to make up the rest as we go." He hurried after the loaded gurney.

"You said you know what happened?" Rodney asked Biro.

"Yes, come in here," she said. The room was a lab, undamaged by the explosion except for some smoke lingering near the ceiling, eerie in the glow of the emergency lights. "Dr. Beckett and I have been reviewing what the database has to say about these growths, and I think I can extrapolate what happened." She typed quickly on one laptop, then turned it to face them. It had a schematic of something that looked a little bit like a misshapen heart. "The organs develop two chambers, which hold chemicals isolated from the blood and altered by some unusual enzymes. The chemistry of it is quite fascinating, actually. One chamber holds the fuel and the other holds an oxidizer, similar to nitrogen tetroxide --"

"We don't need _all_ the details, Doc," John put in.

"Oh, right. Anyway, the oxidizer is quite corrosive. It gradually eats through the thin membrane that separates the two chambers, and when it combines with the fuel -- boom. That normally happens, as Dr. McKay found --"

John realized she didn't know that Dr. McKay wasn't really Dr. McKay. But he was trying not to think about that himself, anyway.

"-- about a kilogram," Biro was saying. "By putting the patients in stasis, we slowed down the heart rate and therefore the blood flow. The organ was unable to grow or to isolate more fuel. So the scans quite correctly showed no significant change in the mass of the organ." She pointed at the narrow line between the chambers in the picture. "But the oxidizer which had already been isolated continued to eat at the separating membrane. Eventually it broke through and the explosion happened on approximately the same schedule it would have if the patients hadn't gone into stasis, except with a much lower yield, of course."

"_That_ was a low yield?" John demanded, thinking of the destroyed stasis unit and the damage to the room.

"Yes, it was -- maybe three or four times as powerful as a typical grenade, I'd say?" Rodney answered, looking up from his disassembly of the damaged computer. "Certainly not enough to severely damage a Wraith ship, which is what these things were intended for." He coughed and wiped at his smoke-reddened eyes. "Dammit, I liked Hewston! She had potential. She reminded me of myself, when I was -- younger," he caught himself just in time.

When he was a woman, John realized. "Yeah, shame you couldn't have swapped her into Torrenz's body before hers blew up," he drawled.

Rodney stiffened. "That's not funny."

"Wasn't intended to be." John glared at him.

Biro was oblivious to the byplay. "Dr. Beckett and I were working on a procedure for removing the organs safely. They have quite an extensive blood supply, considering how quickly it had to be grown. It will be tricky to remove them without the patient bleeding out -- especially in Dr. Watson's case, since he's already lost some blood. And of course, any pressure on the organ itself could hasten the dissolution of the membrane --"

"And boom," John finished.

"Exactly. Now, I have to get these plans up on a display for reference during the operations. Excuse me." She bustled out of the room.

Rodney had the hard drive out of the dead computer now. "This looks intact, at least. I might be able to get something off it." He started hooking up connectors between the hard drive and another computer that he must have just grabbed off someone's lab table. "So, uh, look . . . I get that you think I'm a different person now, but I'm not. I haven't changed."

"You changed years ago."

"Before we even met! As far as anyone on Atlantis is concerned, I'm still the same person."

"You never _were_ the person I thought you were," John growled. "You've been lying to us all along!"

"It wasn't a lie! Not really. I _am_ Rodney McKay now, as much as I'm anyone. Maybe I'm not exactly the man he would have been, but . . . I've been in this body, using this name, for half my adult life. Even if I had the chance to go back now, I . . . I'm not sure I could, or would want to."

"That's what worries me," John said.

"No, you don't get it!"

"Oh, I get it all right, Ingram. You weren't all that unhappy with the change, were you? I bet you were a tomboy as a kid. I bet kids called you 'dyke' in school, am I right? I bet you thought it was just great to have a chance to fuck your own body, and you weren't in any hurry to change back."

"Oh, so we're back to the sexual slurs again," he spat. "Only now I like having a dick too much? What happened to wanting to be fucked because I grew up female? Make up your mind, Sheppard -- am I a gay man, or a lesbian?"

"Dammit!" John gritted out, wishing the walls of Atlantis were punchable. He needed to do _something_ to get his temper under control. "Look, this discussion is not helping anything. Why don't you just . . . get back to work."

"You want business? Fine." He started typing ferociously on the jury-rigged computer. "You know, they're going to need some pretty strong containment when those things come out. Chances are good they'll explode after removal, if not, um, during."

"You worry about your job, McK-- and let me do mine," John snapped.

He slammed the computer closed with a snarl. "Whatever you say, Colonel. I have to get this information to Carson." He carried the computer and salvaged hard drive down the hall toward the rooms where the victims of the explosion had been taken.

John strolled slowly in the same direction, controlling his voice with an effort as he called for an update on the progress of the explosives team. Standing at the intersection where the emergency lights ended and the normal lighting began, he could see Dr. Cole checking over one of the nurses who'd been helping out earlier, stitching a cut on her forehead. After a moment, John frowned. If _that_ was room five . . . . He turned and looked down the empty hallway Rodney had just taken. Even as he was looking, the door to the hall slid closed.

"Oh, tell me he didn't," John breathed to himself. He waved at the sensor and it flashed yellow -- the Ancient sign for no access. He slammed his hand into the door. "McK-- Ingram! Open this door up right now!"

* * *

Not surprisingly, Zelenka couldn't override the lockdown on the door, and given the reinforcement of Ancient shielding, it would take several hours to get through with cutting equipment. It seemed like a couple of lifetimes before anyone in the improvised OR would answer the radio. "Busy here," Rodney's voice finally snapped.

"McKay, what the hell are you doing in there?" John growled.

"Oh, so I'm McKay now? Does that mean you're not angry at me any more?"

"Why don't you come out here and I'll show you how angry I am?"

"Sorry, got work to do."

"What work? You're not a surgeon!"

"I found something in the records of those scans. It might be enough to give us some warning before the next explosion. Unfortunately, the data on disk was only being updated at one-minute intervals, so I can't tell if it's a minute of warning or five seconds, but it's better than nothing."

"Can't someone else do the scans?"

"Well, seeing how both Beckett and Biro are up to their elbows inside my scientists right now, and only one nurse insisted on staying to help them, that doesn't leave a lot of hands free for running a scanner."

"I can send in a volunteer with protective gear."

"It would take too long to explain what to look for. Anyway, I am a volunteer. They're part of my science team, you know."

"Is this about what Torrenz said? You realize no one believes him."

"Is that so? I had the impression you didn't believe _me_ anymore."

"I . . ." John didn't know what to say to that.

"In one day, I've lost my name and reputation, maybe my job, and you -- your trust and, and friendship. So I might as well go all in and bet the farm, right? If nothing else, it proves this wasn't a plot to kill my scientists."

"No one thinks that, Rodney," John protested.

"Isn't that what you were implying earlier? I stole Rodney McKay's body, why not kill off all the witnesses as well?"

"Um, is this an open channel?" John asked weakly.

"Genius here, remember? All the headset signals go through a central control program. I encrypted this one."

" . . . Oh."

"So I'm in this until the bitter end. Might be my last chance to save Atlantis before I get shipped off, right?"

"Rodney . . ."

"Eh, what's that?" Apparently he was talking to someone else; there were sounds in the background. "Okay, hang on, Biro's almost done removing the tumor from Torrenz. Is that blast container ready?"

"There's a Marine waiting at the door."

"Okay, I'm opening the lock. He can come into the hallway."

John had an urge to run and slip through that door as soon as it opened.

"I'm not unlocking the OR. And I am watching lifesigns, so don't get any ideas."

"Dammit, McKay!"

"Okay, I have the box with the . . . thing in it. No warning signs from the scanner so far, but I have to move slowly."

"Someone else can carry it," John said.

"They're busy stitching."

There was a long wait, made worse by the fact that John kept trying to hold his breath.

"All right, I've made the handoff. It's in the containment vessel. I can't scan it in there, so I don't know how long it will take to --"

**BOOM!** sounded along the halls and over the headset.

"Oh. That was . . . a little closer than I wanted to cut it. Sounded like a bigger yield, too, but the blast container held. Um . . . are you still there? My ears are ringing."

John had to swallow twice before he could speak clearly. "I'm still here, Rodney."

"Right. I'm heading back to the OR. Watson seems to be taking them longer, I guess because he was bleeding so badly already. But they're both working on him, so maybe it will go faster now. You'd better get that second blast container into the hallway and ready to go. Scans are still okay . . . Carson, you're not squeezing that thing, are you? Don't squeeze it!"

Beckett's reply wasn't really audible, but John caught the sarcastic tone.

"Listen, uh . . . John. I'm really sorry if, um, if you feel like I deceived you or something."

"Never mind that now, Rodney."

"See, it wasn't my choice to keep it secret in the first place, and by the time I did have a choice a couple of years had passed. And it didn't _feel_ like a lie."

"I get that, Rodney. Maybe I overreacted."

"Would it help if I let you call me Meredith? Or even Mer? I thought maybe . . . maybe that would help. If you want to, that's okay."

"Just forget about it, okay? Concentrate on your scans."

"The scans are . . . oh."

"What?"

"The scans are starting to change."

"Grab the doctors and get out of there!"

"No, they're almost done. They are done. Okay, okay, come on, just get it into the box and give it to me. He's not going to bleed to death in the next three seconds, is he?"

A faint beeping came over the headset.

"That's the warning signal, it's about to blow. Give me the box. No, just -- give me --"

John could hear Beckett yelling something in the background.

"Rodney, just throw the damn thing and get out of there!" he shouted.

"The yield is bigger, it might take out half the tower! I can get it to containment, just tell your man to get out of the way!"

"_You_ get out of the way!"

"Almost there, I -- oh shit --"

**BOOM!**

* * *

John's back hit the mat again -- hard -- and he groaned up at the ceiling. At least the flag was still under his butt, so Ronon hadn't gotten it. "Don't your people have any customs that don't involve beating the crap out of each other?" he griped breathlessly.

In his quarters afterward, with the sweat washed off and an ice pack applied to his aching head, he watched Ronon fidget with the tab of a beer can for several minutes before saying, "Why were you so mad at McKay?"

"What? I wasn't mad at him."

"Yes you were. I saw it."

"Okay, look . . ." John sighed. "I can't really tell you, all right? It involves some secrets that aren't mine to give away."

"Weir already told us."

"What?"

"She called me and Teyla into her office and explained the whole story about the body-swapping . . . thing. Said McKay wanted her to."

"Oh."

"So?"

"So, what?"

"Why did that make you mad at him?"

"Well, doesn't it bug you?"

Ronon shrugged. "Not really. Should it?"

"Finding out he wasn't always a man?"

"Teyla's not a man. Doesn't seem to matter when she beats you up."

"That's different. Rodney's not . . . he wasn't who he said he was!"

"He was the same as I ever knew him. Why should something that happened before I met him bother me? 'Specially since it was an accident."

"He lied to us. To me!"

"So? You people lie all the time."

"What? No, we don't."

"You lied to me just a minute ago, when you said you weren't mad at him."

"That's different."

"No, it's just the same. You think emotions are ugly and messy, you think you have to keep them hidden all the time and be _professional_ \-- but you can't do it forever. So it all comes out as anger." Ronon quirked an eyebrow. "I know a lot about being angry."

"I don't see what that has to do with McKay lying about who he was!"

"Doesn't it? You weren't honest with him, so why should he be?"

"I never lied to McKay! Not about something important like that."

"You didn't tell the whole truth, either, did you?" Ronon eyed John keenly. "On Sateda, if we wanted someone, we'd tell 'em so. Not stand around and watch while they date someone else and pretend we don't care."

"Is that what you did with _Teyla_?" John shot back.

Ronon just shrugged again, letting the jibe roll off. "I told her I was interested. She said it wouldn't work out. I disagreed. Maybe I'll get her to see it my way someday, maybe I won't. But at least I'm up front about it."

John shook his head. "It's different. McKay lying about who he was . . . it's not the same thing."

"Why? Because you were fucking him?"

John winced. "You know you're not supposed to talk about that, right?"

"Figured you knew about it already," Ronon said drily.

"Okay, fine, if that's what you want to hear, it matters because it affects what we do . . . what we did together. I want to know who I'm really sleeping with, okay?"

"And maybe he wanted to know someone really cared before he told all his secrets."

"Well, you know, that being up front thing only works if _both_ people do it."

Ronon just raised an eyebrow.

John's words played back in his head and he felt his face grow warm. "Fine, so maybe we both made mistakes. But that's all over now, so can we stop please talking about it?"

"Don't know. Can you stop thinking about it?" Ronon asked sharply.

It was true, John thought about it a lot, and it bothered him. He was haunted by the image of Rodney in the infirmary, dazed and lonely and hurting. He'd asked John a couple of times if Elizabeth would be letting him stay on Atlantis, if there would be any disciplinary action taken for concealing the events at Area 51. But he hadn't asked the question that hung between them with every silence that fell.

If he had asked, John couldn't have answered. He couldn't really put words to what he was feeling, the sense that everything that happened between them had been false, a flimsy structure undermined by that one sin of omission. And he wasn't ready to try to describe the other half of it, the growing suspicion that if he met the real Rodney McKay he would choose Rodney-nee-Mary in his place. And where could they go from there?

But was something that happened years before they met really a reason to give up what they had? No one else seemed to be bothered by it much.

"He's coming back tonight," Ronon said into John's reverie. "You better figure out what you're going to do about it."

* * *

Rodney stepped through the wormhole looking far better than when he left. His eyebrows had grown back, his stubbled hair looked more like a military cut than a casualty, and only a few red patches remained from the burns on the side of his face. He was walking easily and carrying his luggage rather than pulling it, with no sign of discomfort from the metal fragments that had gouged his side.

"Welcome home, Rodney," Elizabeth said warmly.

Rodney kept looking around until he caught sight of John, watching from the balcony. "Oh, uh, thanks. Good to be back."

"How was your trip?"

"It was . . . um, well, sort of fraught. We should, um, probably discuss this in your office?"

"No rush. You can get settled in first." She looked around. "John will help you take your things back to your quarters."

John rolled his eyes at being assigned the role of bellhop, but he knew what Elizabeth was doing and appreciated it. He descended the stairs and reached for the heavier of the bags. Rodney tried to catch his eye and John gave a short nod of reassurance before leading the way from the control room.

"So how was it, really?" he asked when they reached Rodney's quarters and privacy at last.

"Pretty awful," he said, wincing. "Jeannie was . . . well, upset would be an understatement. She lost her brother, just when she thought she was getting him back, you know? And she was angry at me for not telling her -- seven years ago, six months ago, any time in between. I couldn't really argue with that."

"So what did she decide?" John asked. Elizabeth had resolved that they should let Jeannie have a say in what they would do about the name and reputation of Rodney McKay.

Rodney sat on the corner of the bed with a whuff. "She's letting me keep it. The name, the pretense, the whole thing. She said . . . she said I'd better win a Nobel in her brother's name, that's what she said. And I think she wants some nieces or nephews . . . um. I told her about how I offered to let you call me Meredith, if that would make you feel any better about it. But that won't work for her, since she always called her brother Mer. Actually, by the end of the visit she was calling me Rodney exclusively."

"And what about your family?"

Rodney shook his head. "There's just my brother, and he thought I died years ago. He doesn't have clearance to know about alien technology, and even if I could tell him he'd never really understand. I think . . . I think it's best to let him go on believing Mary Ingram is dead. It's not that far from the truth, anyway."

"Then there's the IOA," John concluded.

"Yeah. Well, fortunately we were able to recover most of the documents surrounding the death of Mary -- of, of my body. It corroborates what I said, and one or two people on the committee had prior run-ins with Colonel Simmons so they believed me about that. I got a reprimand -- and a pay cut, can you believe that? But they're not going to fire me, anyway. I think they think I'm too valuable to the expedition."

"They're right about that," John said, and it felt good coming out of his mouth.

Rodney blinked. "So . . . does that mean you . . . I mean, am I still on the team?"

John sighed and pulled the desk chair forward so he could slump into it. "If you want it, yeah, you're still on the team."

"If I --? Yes, yes I still want it!"

"Ronon said Elizabeth told them the whole story."

"I asked her to. I couldn't do it myself -- I mean, obviously I couldn't do it while I was on Earth, and I didn't really know if I'd be allowed to come back -- but I sort of chickened out and asked her to do it for me. Are they, um, okay with it?"

"They seem to be. We'll find out soon -- we've got a mission planned for a few days from now."

"Oh yeah? Anything interesting?"

John grinned. Rodney would like this. "How about an Ancient power generation station on the sea floor?"

Rodney's eyes widened. "Of what planet?"

"This one. Zelenka found it last week."

"We have to check it out!"

"We will. We wanted to give you time to get settled in again, read the database entries, that sort of thing. And get cleared medically, too." John sobered. "Beckett says you saved his life, taking that box out of his hands. But you nearly got killed yourself."

Rodney looked at the floor. "It was . . . it was the right thing to do. They were my responsibility. How are they doing, by the way? Torrenz and Watson?"

John shrugged. "Torrenz went back to Earth, didn't you hear? Elizabeth got him reassigned inside the SGC because he didn't have the 'temperament' for intergalactic exploration. Watson's still here, recovering okay, I think. He hasn't decided whether to stay or not, but I think he wanted Beckett overseeing his care because it would be too hard to explain to the doctors on Earth."

Rodney chuckled faintly. "He could be right about that." He stood and looked around the room vaguely. "So . . . I guess I should get unpacked, talk to Elizabeth -- oh, and I need to go see Katie, tell her I'm back."

"Don't." John stood up and caught him by the arm. "Don't go to Katie. Stay here." He looked down as his hand slid to grasp Rodney's and give it a squeeze. "Stay with me . . . Mer."

**Author's Note:**

> Wondering about the title? It's from H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan:
> 
> _Things are seldom what they seem;  
> Skim milk masquerades as cream.  
> (...) Storks turn out to be but logs;  
> Bulls are but inflated frogs._


End file.
